Electrifying voice of international baritone gives gravitas to orchestra

Henley Symphony Orchestra autumn concert
St Mary’s Church, Henley
Saturday, November 15

A FRIEND recently asked what Henley has to offer culturally, suggesting small town restrictions. I immediately thought of the music.

We are so privileged to have world-class musicians such as baritone Efim Zavalny visiting our town, as he did for Henley Symphony Orchestra’s autumn concert at St Mary’s.

I will not forget the passionate intensity with which this extraordinary performer sang Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death in his native Russian. The four songs (for which the audience was given a translation) depict different scenes in which a person dies, described by the triumphant persona of Death, gathering them in. A sober subject matter, yes, but Zavalny’s performance, as he teased, beckoned and cajoled the subject of each song (and the listener), was electrifying.

He went on to sing Mahler’s Ich bin der welt abhanden gekommen (I am lost to the world), which provided a calm and contemplative contrast to the tempestuous Mussorgsky. Zavalny’s rich baritone was often accompanied by a single instrument, with a whispered string background.

The evening had a rousing start with the orchestra playing the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor by Borodin, an unfinished opera featuring the 10th century Viking ruler of Kiev. There are many familiar tunes in this suite in four movements, so that after the rollicking pace of the first dance, we enjoyed the beauty and calm of the main theme in the second (recognisable as Stranger in Paradise from the musical Kismet, which used the music of Prince Igor). In the original opera, Igor is captured by Cumans (Polovtsy), nomadic invaders of Russia, who entertain their captive with dances. The audience of 2025 continues to be hugely entertained.

Closing the concert was the fiendishly difficult Symphonic Dances op. 45 by Rachmaninov, written three years before his death in 1943. The orchestra, led by David Burton and conducted by Alexander Walker, rose to the occasion magnificently, each section given its moments to shine. Notable in the first dance was a solo by the alto saxophone, then the brass section shone in the ghoulish waltz of the second dance.

After a turbulent start, the third dance develops a complex mixture of themes, keys and time signatures. Here, the soul could be grappling with death — and the bell tolls clearly above the orchestra. The work ends with a volcanic climax, which literally is all bells and whistles. Henley Symphony Orchestra, under Walker’s baton, continues to astound.

Jane Redley